Chapter 14 - Part 2

Anthony's feet landed silently onto the dry earth, protected from the morning dew by the leafy branches he had just clambered back down from. The man above was no longer and threat. Whatever had been started, Anthony had finished. It was obvious the shooter was primed to kill Anthony and only an act of divine intervention had saved his life. But it was not right to leave the man to die slowly, perched in the treetop. A quick blade into the nape of the man's neck had ceased whatever life he had remaining in an instant. 

Maybe not a soldier's death, but better than purgatory.

The question now was whether some form of transport was further down the road, still hidden from sight. Ebbe's Rover had been dropped on its side and destroyed, what were the chances the attacking forces vehicles had also suffered the same fate? That would depend on the extent of the free floating incident. For all he knew, the event could be localised just to the area around the house, or could have extended to the whole country, or beyond. 

Anthony stuck to the treeline, hugging the shadows, keeping his profile hidden. There was no knowing what other delights Atkins had left behind. He broke into a light trot, partly to invigorate his abused muscles, partly to pick up the pace. The sooner he found a way to seek out help, the better. But where to turn? The whole series of events stank of double-crosses, triple-crosses, and cover ups.

Conspiracy theory bullshit, that's what it was, he grumbled, taking a moment to stare up at the blank blue sky, perfect as a painting, before returning his concentration to the road ahead. He sucked in deep breaths as he jogged, filling his lungs with curiously stale air. He'd tasted air like that before. It was office air. Goddamned air-con crap, recycled through the lungs of all of the sickly, pale-faced desk-jockeys that generated the supposed intel that he and his teams turned into missions. He slowed to a walk, eyes surveying the landscape with suspicion. Why did it feel like he was still in that bloody basement, trapped beneath the rubble, sucking in the dwindling air supply? 

Stopping, he spun around, inhaling the dead air through his nostrils, holding it in his lungs, savouring it like you would a cigar, before releasing it, imagining the invisible breath escaping like thick sweet smoke. 

Bad air.

Was it poison? Could all that they had experienced and seen, be part of some sort of mass hallucinogen released into the atmosphere? Was that unnatural blue above simply  manufactured by his mind? Perhaps an image, a photo, or painting he had once seen, retained in the recesses of his mind, and now released falsely to his visual cortex. 

Either that or he truly was still stuck beneath a pile of rubble, sucking up his last few breaths, brain cells dying off by their billions, his mind creating the easy escape, and the impossible sniper in the tree.

That's it, goddamn it, I'm a dying man, living out the fantasy that I escaped. He let out a little chuckle, amused by his own foolishness. 

"I suppose," he gesticulated to the bushes opposite, "I shall turn the corner and and see a fully furnished humvee, keys in the ignition, a dice hanging off the mirror," he chuckled, amusing himself, before his face dropped, his eyes frozen.

"Ebbe," he muttered. Before slapping his own face as hard as he could. "Pull yourself together Anthony," he muttered, "until you breath your last, you keep on acting like a soldier. Enough of this shit."

He turned and unexpectedly let out a thundering shout. 

"I'm not ready yet, you bastard." 

Not caring who had heard, he immediately broke into a run, rounding the corner at full speed. The thin single track road began to widen here, and the high hedges fell away, revealing the tumbling countryside of fields and small intermittent copses that surrounded the area as far as the eye could see.

No humvee, he noted with relief, vindicating his assertion that this was no dying dream. Though, he paused, he may have deleted the idea to self-vindicate and perpetuate the dream. He told himself to fuck off and continued his jog, slowing the pace a litte, eyes peeled for any unfriendlies who may have heard his outburst. 

The coast was clear, the horizon free of choppers heading in as back-up, the landscape free of any obvious sign of surrounding troops. Had Atkins come completely free of any form of back-up? Out of the corner of his eye Anthony spotted a matte black object protruding from behind a grassy knoll to the centre of a wild grass field. Throwing subtly and stealth to hell, Anthony clambered over the dilapidated fence, a piece of which splintered off under his weight, and strode menacingly across the strongly scented grass. He had already floated off the ground, been shot at point blank range, battled three armed men, and been saved from a sniper by the hand of God. These were no longer the times to be shuffling on knees and elbows. Whatever that field contained could watch him goddamn stride toward it.

His boots kicked through the tall, dry grass, breaking stems, and crushing delicate buttercups. But it felt more real than anywhere had for a long time. He could smell the sweet wild flowers gently drifting upwards, he could hear the swish of grass blades against leather, the rattle of seeds being knocked loose. Here, he wasn't being poisoned, or sucking up deep, useless breaths of stale air. 

Or was this the final stage? Was this sweet, clean meadow his walk into the valley of death? 

Something was in the field. It was real. Focus on that Anthony, focus on the object. You're not skipping into heaven, you moron. Life wasn't the fairy tales and bullshit shown in films and books, and neither was death. It was messy, gruesome and sudden. 

Ahead of him the sky finally began to diffuse into orange and yellow, and indistinct white smudges started to drift into view. Anthony paused and watched as a large yellow sun began to shimmer upon the Eastern horizon. The glowing orb breached the horizon and lazily hung just above the distant tree-line, shining warm amber light upon the landscape below. And now, even before he had reached the metallic black object, the orange highlights made it patently obvious what he could see was the landing strut of a stealth helicopter. 

When he reached the mangled wreck, it was clear the vehicle had landed in this dip, dropping off Atkins and his troop, and had suffered the same fate as Ebbe's range rover. As best as Anthony could make out, when the gravity had released its grip upon the machine, it had quickly upended itself and so dropped on its rota blades, when normality was resumed.

An upside-down 'copter was bloody useless to Anthony. 

"Well, shit," Anthony couldn't help but grumble,"now what the fuck do I do?"

"Language Anthony!" scolded an uncannily familiar voice.

He whirled around to see Ebbe, her face lit up by wide smile. Beside her stood Art, scratching his head, a lopsided grin writ upon his bemused face.

"Now I know I'm dreaming," was all Anthony could splutter.